THE BALD CYPRESS 65 



Sometimes there are successive levels of these cypress stumps 

 with their roots and knees embedded in the impure peat as in the 

 Pleistocene swamp which grew in an old Cretaceous basin near 

 Bodkin Point on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay, and a 

 similar succession is shown in another such swamp recently dis- 

 covered in excavating for the foundation of a hotel in the city of 

 Washington. Another most interesting rehc of a Pleistocene 

 cypress bay is one that was discovered west of the Blue Ridge in 

 the Shenandoah Valley near Lexington, Virginia, many miles 

 west of the present range of the species. 



At the present time the bald cypress is practically confined to 

 what is known as the Coastal Plain and does not extend its range 

 inland beyond the so-called Fall line which marks the boundary 

 between the mostly unconsolidated rocks of the Coastal Plain and 

 the ancient crystalline rocks of the Piedmont Plateau. But during 

 the Pleistocene when the Coastal Plain region was largely flooded 

 by the sea, the forests were forced inland, and the cypress evi- 

 dently spread up the valley of the James River and through the 

 Gap in the Blue Ridge into the Great Valley of Virginia. Other 

 Pleistocene records of the cypress, far inland from its present range 

 have been found in northwestern Georgia and in central Alabama. 



Many other Pleistocene records of the cypress are outside the 

 Hmits of the present range, one being as far north as Long Branch, 

 New Jersey, nearly 150 miles north of its present northern limit. 

 The area of distribution of the bald cypress in the area east of 

 the Mississippi River, and the known Pleistocene records are shown 

 on the accompanying sketch map. 



With the melting of the last Pleistocene ice sheet we find evi- 

 dence of cHmatic conditions somewhat warmer than those that 

 prevail at the present time in the same latitudes. This is shown 

 by various subf ossil records of both terrestrial and marine organisms 

 that have been discovered at various points from Maryland to 

 Maine, as well as by the isolated occurrences of hving animals and 

 plants where they have survived in limited favorable localities 

 many miles north of their present normal range, as in Essex 

 County, Massachusetts, and Newfoundland. 



